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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581631">Forgotten Humanity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSiren/pseuds/ValmureEld'>ValmureEld (InkSiren)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Boys (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Gen, Graphic Description, Injury, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:53:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,327</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581631</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSiren/pseuds/ValmureEld</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Billy Butcher is definitely on death's door and a supe is definitely his only chance of survival? </p><p>He wouldn't know, because he's unconscious and there's metal lodged in his chest. </p><p>Supe OC, no pairings. Homelander shows up near the end because he's a walking infection you can't escape.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Forgotten Humanity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/gifts">BlueNeutrino</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25617955">Condemned</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/pseuds/BlueNeutrino">BlueNeutrino</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So my good friend BlueNeutrino got into The Boys now and we've partnered up to fix the absolute dirth of Butcher whump. </p><p>This is my half of our, a supe is kind and saves Billy, trade.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She finds his body by sound, and it is laying on its back beneath an enormous oak tree.</p><p>The <em>thud thud</em> she normally drowns out of heart valves, the scrape of broken bone grating on itself, the wetness crackling in a lung half drowned in its own blood all draw her closer until she's in a dead run.</p><p>He's in bad shape, and part of her wonders what happened. It's a small part. The rest of her is busy thinking about how he should be put together, about how his lungs should be clear and his blood safely wound through them to feed back to the heart that just skipped three beats.</p><p>Worry brands itself between her brows and she sees he is on the fringe of the blast and yet didn't even begin to escape it: his body is prickling with metal shrapnel.</p><p>She has a strong stomach but the sight makes her momentarily stutter because as she falls to her knees beside him she sees one thin shine of metal is throbbing with the desperate movement of his heart.</p><p>The moment she removes it, the damage it is blocking will open and he'll have even less time alive.</p><p>She can feel his blood soaking into her knees, and before expending the energy she first wants to make sure there's a man to save. She can hear his body work at a distance but she needs to touch to feel the spark still jumping neurons in his brain.</p><p>Her fingers are feather-light and sympathetic as she brushes across his forehead, and at once she is overwhelmed by a surge of activity. His brain is very alive, and though mercifully he isn't conscious of what a wreck his body is at the moment, his brain knows and is trying desperately to save itself.</p><p>Save <em>him.</em></p><p>No matter how aware she is of the mechanical nature of a body, she has never doubted the presence of the soul or the life force that ties it, and his soul is still huddled inside a body that is falling apart like a house on fire.</p><p>The shard of metal rocks sickeningly with the power of the muscle in his chest and she pities him. It’s clear: he wants so badly to live.</p><p>"I'm so sorry," she whispers, and then looks above and apologizes again as she lifts her hands and the great tree begins to brown and brittle and wither.</p><p>Dead leaves scatter across their bodies and catch in the blood slicking his chest and she bites her lip, a tear striking into her jaw as she pulls 400 years of life from the gentle giant in the hope it may give this man his remaining time back.</p><p>Fingers burning, pulsing with white energy she grasps blood-slick metal and braces her free hand against his sternum, clenching her teeth together and trying not to think too much as she pulls the metal free. There’s a sickening drag against it, a squelching of his blood and his body shudders and reacts to the immensity of the pain but his eyelashes do no more than flicker as his eyes roll and he remains unconscious.</p><p>She presses both hands against the horrible wound and pours the tree’s sacrifice into his body.</p><p>Beneath her hands, under the shreds of the shirt it doesn’t look like he buttoned anyway, she sees light fill his chest cavity and shine between his ribs, illuminating his bloodstream all the way up his neck to frame his eyes like a strange masquerade mask. The arteries in his arms flood with light and she feels his heart struggle to keep on beating as she squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on knitting it back together.</p><p>It’s difficult, working on a moving target but the strength of the movement just makes her want to try harder. The man is too young and too strong to be dead so soon, and she tries to convince his heart she is a friend.</p><p>She weaves muscle first, then cardiac artery, then presses her fingers a little closer and watches in her mind as his pericardium seals up. She has made sure to drain the blood from around it, drawing the extra fluid up through the wound where it gushes unnaturally around her hands and across his chest. When she’s sure the pressure won’t be fatal, she closes his chest wall too, and that’s when she finally lets herself feel faint.</p><p>She sways, vision blacking for a moment as she falls back on her heels, determined not to fall onto him. His lung is still crackling and he has broken ribs, but as she blinks spots out of her vision and peers through those ribs she can see she’s done good work and his heart is once again sound.</p><p>His eyes flicker open then, and he takes a strangled gasp, coughing up blood and visibly reeling as she reaches out to touch his shoulder.</p><p>“Easy,” she soothes, reaching up to touch the side of his head where blood is trickling from his hair. She can just barely feel the pulse in his temple as he turns to look at her.</p><p>“What...ah...my fuckin ears are ringing,” he mutters, and quickly abandons trying to lift his head.</p><p>“You were in an explosion, it...it got ugly. I’m sorry,” she explains, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Do you have a phone? I need to call you an ambulance.”</p><p>He doesn’t answer her, and for a moment she’s concerned about blood in his brain when she realizes he’s squinting up at the decayed canopy.</p><p>“What the fuck happened to the tree?” he asks.</p><p>“I had to,” she says sadly, looking at the bough herself. “You were dying.”</p><p>There’s a choked breath and she sees him looking at her, his expression suddenly twisted with a ferocity and a <em>hatred</em> that makes her breath catch.</p><p>“What the fuck do you want with me?” he spits, and she sees his whole body tensing to move in a way she knows will seriously risk his lung.</p><p>“Please don’t move,” she says, panicked. “I’m not going to hurt you.”</p><p>“Unless what?” he challenges, and the venom in his voice is scathing. “Unless I don’t pay? Expect me to be <em>so</em> grateful do you?”</p><p>She blinks, shaking her head. “I don’t want anything...I want you to live.”</p><p>“Why?” he demands. "Just couldn't let me die in peace, could you?"</p><p>“I don’t want anything, I want you to live!” she repeats, feeling anger of her own surging. “I just sacrificed this beautiful tree to knit your heart back together. I don’t expect you to pay for that. The tree paid enough,” she gestures. "And say what you want but your unconscious body definitely wanted to stay alive."</p><p>He is still glaring at her, and she can see he doesn’t trust her, doesn’t believe her at all, and rather than spark more anger she feels a bewildered pity.</p><p>“What happened to you, that you don’t believe I would help you just because you’re a living person who needed it?”</p><p>“Because you aren’t,” he seeths through clenched teeth. “Never met a Supe who wasn’t high on their own fucking power and look at what you can do. Bet it’s not just plants, is it?”</p><p>She shakes her head, and breaks his gaze, turning instead to his other wounds. It’s clear he’s not going to offer a phone so she can get him other help, and now she rather wants to prove him wrong.</p><p>“Well, power hasn’t gone to my head yet and while I think I probably could pull the life out of you it makes me sick to think of so I guess I’ll never find out.”</p><p>She presses a palm against his broken ribs and he grabs her wrist, teeth bared and bloody and he actually snarls. She meets his eyes, calm against the fury in his.</p><p>“Your ribs are broken,” she says evenly. “And your lung has blood in it that’s still coming. That difficulty you’re having breathing will get worse. Your grip is strong and so is your heartbeat, so I know you’re a fighter, but drowning isn’t really something you can beat with brute force.”</p><p>He chokes and begins to cough on his retort and she shakes her head, lining three fingers up along the damaged ribs and watching them quake with his coughing. “This will go better if you hold your breath,” she says, and then surges the dregs of the tree into his ribs and lets it drip between them to saturate his damaged lung.</p><p>She watches the bleed seal up and the intercostal muscles shudder as his diaphragm spasms. He can’t fight her when she’s melding his bones back together. It’s all he can do to stay conscious, she imagines.</p><p>He does manage it, but he’s gasping like a newborn chick when she’s done, his eyes closed, mouth open, and chest working all the way through with a gory glisten. She frowns and rests her palm over his heart again, watching it beat harshly beneath.</p><p>“The fatal damage is closed up,” she says, and she feels his breathing slow beneath her hand. “If you’re lucky you should be on an endorphin high in the next few seconds.”</p><p>His eyes flicker open and his head rolls and she sees his pupils react. “Yeah, there it is,” she says, wiping blood away from over his brow and checking his brain activity at the same time. His body is dumping endorphins like they’re morphine and she can see he’s temporarily hazy with it.</p><p>“Feel better?” she asks, softening her touch to run fingers through his thick hair. He doesn’t look young, but he’s certainly not old either, his hair still strikingly dark. She truly wonders what happened to make him so bitter.</p><p>He twitches away from her touch, watching her warily, shifting gingerly. This time, she lets him struggle to sit up.</p><p>“You know, I think I do want something,” she says, and watches as the tension returns to his shoulders, his eyes meeting hers with a bitter coldness.</p><p>“Fucking astonished.”</p><p>“I want to know why you hate supes so much.”</p><p>“You’re all a bunch of pricks, thought that was obvious.”</p><p>“Hm,” she nods, picking up the metal laying near her thigh and turning it over in her hands. He eyes it, like he’s expecting her to plant it back into his chest.</p><p>“Well,” she says, and turns the metal over again before offering it to him “That was lodged in your heart, so,” she shrugs as he doesn’t take it before staking it in the bloody ground. “Guess even pricks have their moments of chivalry. Try to remember that.”</p><p>She gets up then, and can feel his eyes on her the whole way. She looks at him steadily for a long moment, watching his heartbeat change as he fills aching lungs and she can see the shift in his eyes as she offers her hand.</p><p>He’s afraid of her.</p><p>“What’s your name?” she asks, keeping her hand out where he can reach it. “Mine is Lyra.”</p><p>“Butcher,” he says after a moment, and it’s the first soft word he’s spoken. “Billy Butcher.”</p><p>“Billy,” she says, crouching to offer her hand a little closer. “Let me help you up?”</p><p>He looks at her, and he is guarded. His pulse is racing, his eyes locked onto hers, and then, heartbeat fluttering, he grasps her hand and she pulls him to his feet.</p><p>“I worked too hard to fix your heart,” she says, keeping a firm grip on his hand until she’s certain he’s steady. “I won’t be the one to stop it. Just, do me a favor and be more careful about stopping it yourself.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Billy? Wow, Billy Butcher fancy running into you here!"</p><p>Billy snarls under his breath and looks over the aisle rack. Homelander's perfect teeth are grinning back at him from the other side, gesturing like they're old friends who haven't seen each other since high school. He gives a nod and a pinched smile, too tired, too damn hungover to put up the act. What's the point, anyway, when Homelander is going to do what he wants regardless.</p><p>As he rounds the end of the display, the blond supe gestures with the set of Nerf guns he's carrying.</p><p>"Just out to get something for the tyke. Lots of time to make up for. How have you been?"</p><p>Billy fixes him with the most penetrating glare he can muster, and Homelander only smiles back, tipping his head with a wink and a gesture.</p><p>"There it is," he says, jabbing playfully at Billy's chest. "Almost didn't recognize you, your heartbeat was so...calm."</p><p>He laughs and clicks his tongue, and entirely without the glowing eyes to tip him off Billy can feel when Homelander looks inside. He fills his lungs to steady himself, grinding his molars together and hoping the sound is irritating.</p><p>"Wow, that looks bad what," he glances around, furtive, and lowers his voice to a stage whisper "<em>the fuck</em>, happened to your heart, Billy? That's nasty."</p><p>"Explosion," he says, entirely without his conscious consent. He can feel that his voice is hollow. "Shrapnel."</p><p>Homelander hisses through his teeth and shakes his head. "That's awful," he says, reaching out for Billy's shirt. He twitches back, and Homelander's eyes flash a warning. Butcher takes another angry breath and this time, lets Homelander pull the edge of his shirt back.</p><p>"Wow," he gives a low whistle. "I know you can't appreciate this but I can see the scar all the way down. That's some miracle." He lets go and steps back, the plastic smile firmly in place. "Glad you're okay, don't know what I'd do without you." He thumps Billy's shoulder just hard enough to hurt.</p><p>Billy doesn't quite register, his hand smoothing across his chest as Homelander moves away.</p><p>He can feel his own heart pounding.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you're not squeamish, there is youtube footage of a knife being moved by the victim's heart still beating. It's utterly wild.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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